The National Science Foundation today named physics Professor Carl E. Wieman of the University of Colorado at Boulder one of seven scientists and engineers in the United States to receive the first Director's Awards for Distinguished Teaching Scholars.
The award is NSF's "highest honor for excellence in both teaching and research." Each recipient will receive $300,000 over the next four years to continue sharing their teaching talents and research excellence with students at all levels and with the public at large.
Wieman, who attracted worldwide attention for creating a new form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate in 1995, is currently teaching a large physics class for non-scientists. Most of his students are CU-Boulder freshmen and all of them plan to major in disciplines other than science.
"I really do see, for the good of physics and society, that scientists have to do a better job of educating the general population," said Wieman, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.
"We have to find a way to make physics interesting and relevant to everyone, because it plays such an important part in modern society," he said. Wieman is part of a national task force, formed by all the major U.S. physics organizations, that has been established to improve physics education.
NSF Director Rita Colwell said the awards are intended to further encourage scientists and engineers to apply their talents to education, inside the classroom and out.
"These distinguished scholars are doing much to improve science and mathematics education to benefit non-majors as well as majors in science and engineering," said Judith Ramaley, NSF's assistant director for education and human resources. "In addition, they are raising to a higher level the knowledge and literacy of the general public, which is very important to the nation's future prominence in science, engineering and technology."
Wieman plans to use his award to develop better methods of teaching physics to non-scientists. His efforts are aimed at enhancing a curriculum that starts with everyday devices -- light bulbs, microwave ovens, nuclear power plants -- and uses them to introduce concepts in physics.
Specifically, Wieman will develop interactive Web-based computer programs that will allow students to better visualize the physics, particularly at the atomic level, that underlies the behavior of such devices. He also will work on a new approach for presenting physics concepts in large classes using real experiments where the students predict what will happen -- and then compare their predictions to what actually occurs.
The other six professors receiving the NSF award teach at Harvard University, Smith College, Boston University, Purdue University and the universities of Wisconsin and Washington. The recipients will be honored at a Nov. 8 ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
Wieman has taught undergraduate and graduate students at CU-Boulder since 1984. He is one of 18 faculty members with the title of distinguished professor on the CU-Boulder campus and is a fellow and former chairman of JILA, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
As one of 13 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars in 1999-2000, Wieman traveled to eight other U.S. colleges and universities to meet with undergraduate students in informal settings, participate in classroom lectures and seminars and make a major address open to the entire academic community. He also has given numerous public lectures on his research.
Among Wieman's numerous awards are the 2000 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, the King Faisal International Prize for Science, the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science and the Richtmyer Lecture Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The physics department is part of CU-Boulder's College of Arts and Sciences.